Claims Adjusting Firm Revenue Benchmark

Average Claims Adjusting Firm Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every claims adjusting firm with paid employees, including independent adjusters working for insurers and public adjusters working for policyholders, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of firms gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$1,983,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $8.9 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 4,478 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,983,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Claims Adjusting, NAICS 524291. The category covers independent adjusting firms and public adjusters investigating and settling insurance claims for insurers or policyholders. Insurance agencies and carriers are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5242: 524210 Insurance Agencies and Brokerages; 524292 Pharmacy Benefit Management and Other Third Party Administration of Insurance and Pension Funds; 524298 All Other Insurance Related Activities. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group

Agencies, brokerages, and other insurance related activities, NAICS 5242, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 55.7 to 58.4 percent. This benchmark covers Agencies, brokerages, and other insurance related activities, NAICS 5242, as a whole, and this category accounts for 4,478 of the 151,664 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Claims Adjusting, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 37.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a substantial share because licensed adjusters and their support staff are the product, though many firms also rely on contract adjusters paid outside the payroll during catastrophes.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes contract adjusters, travel, software and licensing, which together carry much of what a firm spends.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Claims Adjusting, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 9.0 people, and the industry averaged 1.2 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could be a team of adjusters with administrative support, expanded by contract adjusters when claims surge.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Claims Adjusting Firm: what catastrophes, fee structures and licensing do to an adjuster's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Independent or public adjuster? Independent adjusters are paid by insurers per claim or per day, while public adjusters are paid by policyholders as a share of the settlement, and the two sit on opposite sides of a claim. Both appear in this category with different revenue patterns.
• How much of the work is catastrophe? Hurricanes, hail and wildfires create surges of claims that can make an adjusting firm's year, followed by quiet stretches. Annual receipts smooth a workload that arrives with the weather.
• Which licenses apply? Adjusters are licensed by states with varying requirements, and public adjusters face fee caps and conduct rules in many jurisdictions. Licensing shapes where a firm can work and what it can charge.
• How are fees set? Per-claim schedules, hourly and daily rates and percentage fees produce different revenue for the same volume of claims, and insurer contracts set the terms for independents. The fee model behind a figure varies widely.
• Staff adjusters or contractors? Firms keep a core staff and add contract adjusters during surges, which keeps payroll lean but shifts capacity risk. The staffing model explains much of the difference in payroll shares across firms.
• What does technology change? Drones, photo estimating and claims software speed inspections and change how insurers assign work, sometimes bypassing field adjusters altogether. A firm's adaptation to those tools shapes its future more than its past receipts.